PSAT Info for Expats and What I ate in Leiden

Being an expat isn't easy all the time, not only are you consumed by your everyday living in a foreign country, but you know this is not your final landing spot so you also have to remember to keep up on what is happening in your home country. One of these things we have to keep up with since we have an almost 16 year old is college prep.

It gets a bit difficult here because her school, even though it is an international school, is really more of a Dutch school and they have no idea why I am concerned about getting my kid ready to go to college. In fact, I recall during one conference last year when she was a freshman I made mention of college and they acted like I was a complete dolt because well, everyone goes to college. I quickly remembered I needed to switch things to University and they became a little more understanding, but you could tell they still thought I was a bit of a crackpot. But, luckily it has just been 10 years since I graduated uni myself so I sort of remember the process. I know next year she needs to get in for the SAT or ACT, so I wanted her to sit in on the PSAT this year; lucky for us, there is an American school nearby. 

Somewhere between Leiden and The Hague there is a little town called Wassenaar and it hosts the American School of The Hague. Let me tell you, my daughter was in love. This place was very American and all the people in it were just about all Americans. Too bad it costs an arm and a leg and possibly your first grandchild to have your kid attend-otherwise I'd have my kid there in a heartbeat. Anyway, they give all the testing you'd normally find in the U.S. at the same time as you'd find it in the U.S. The woman who handles it all was a dream-she even suggested hotels we could stay at (it is about an hour to get from Amsterdam to the School and in the early morning, as you had to arrive at 8am it would take nearly 2 hours so that means we would have had to leave our house ready to go by 5:45 am...that wasn't happening). So, we stayed at a hotel nearby in Leiden called Hotel Van der Valk. I have only felt stranded with out a car two times in my life and this was one of the two times. There was nothing nearby, as we got the feel it was mostly for business use. Luckily the hotel had a restaurant that wasn't horribly over priced. 

So, after a nice relaxing evening checked into our hotel with the worlds best bathtub and a good nights sleep I took her to the school and she completed the PSAT. I have no idea how she did nor do we really care, this was just a chance for her to see what the who testing experience was like and get a feel for it. Now the real prep begins.

So, since we weren't in Amsterdam of course I took the opportunity to take lots of photos of everything I ate...so without further ado, I present...

What I Ate Wednesday

Linking up with Jenn over at Peas and Crayons, come join the rest of the par-tay!

We left Amsterdam later than I wanted to, but the kiddo had had a long day and we just could not get moving, so when we sat down at the restaurant in the hotel we just wanted something light and easy because we knew we'd be going to bed soon, so we settled on french onion soup and bread.

'Twas delicious!

For dessert I had an Irish Coffee, the brought the cutest little tray of cookies with it (one of the reasons I freaking love Europe) and I had a tasty Speculaas cookie-I think that is what it was, it is kind of like a gingerbread cookie, it is nice and spicy.

The next morning we got up for breakfast, they had a very nice buffet set out and everything was nice and warm.

I had a waffle, my only complaint is the syrup. It reminds me more of molasses than syrup. But, it is still pretty good. I had that along with some eggs and a little bacon and some obviously canned peaches, but that is okay, I love canned peaches. Remind me of childhood and my favorite song by Presidents of the United State of America.

...and incase you've never heard the song, it is awesome so here it is...

After a long walk, nearly an hour, in the cold trying to find anything to do around our hotel I was too cold and gave up so I went back and had a coffee with more speculaas.

Then, it was finally time for me to pick the kiddo up from her test, we rode the bus to The Hauge Central Station instead of Leiden so we could see somewhere new...we got Julia's pasta to go on the train. I love that you can get pasta to go, it is simply amazing.

So, that sums up our trip to Leiden. It was fun and we have a much more confident teenager about studying for and taking the SAT next school year. Anyone have any tips for studying? If so, drop 'em in the comments, we'd love to hear 'em!

What I Ate in Cologne

I love doing a What I Ate Wednesday post after I travel. It is so fun to document what I ate...I love trying to find unique, yet tasty treats. My trip to Cologne was a blast and boy did I find some tasty treats!

First night...we were exhausted after the frazzle of train travel and finding our way to our place and settling in so we walked for about an hour trying to find something but our minds were blown that so many places had only German menu's and my daughter is quite fluent in Dutch as am I when it comes to menu's but don't let people fool you when they say Dutch and German are close because they are two completely different languages...so we settled on a little Hard Rock action. We were served by another American who wanted to know all about Amsterdam hehe

I started with a glass of wine and the kiddo had some sort of fruity concoction.

Dinner was supposed to take a while because there was a group of 43 there (a school group it looked like) but our dinner came like 5 minutes after our drinks...I wasn't prepared, but we ate anyway hehe The burger was delicious. Service was prompt, highly recommend, especially if you are having difficulties with menus or people not speaking much English and your brain needs a break.

Day two...started off with Coffee Bean and Tea leaf. We saw this walking around the first night and this was our absolute favorite corporate coffee place when we lived in Southern California. So, naturally we had to get the hook up with a creme brulee latte and a blue berry muffin.

Lunch prior to the chocolate museum was curry wurst....this place is just outside the chocolate museum, I am sure it is strategically placed because you need to have some fuel to power through chocolate!

Post chocolate museum fuel. This is in the Chocolate Grand Cafe. There are amazing views of the Rhine from here, lots of seating...even some outdoor. The service was very prompt and the food was amazing.

That cake, doesn't quite compare to the one at the Louvre, but it was a very, very close second!

After a ton of shopping and even heading back to our hotel we needed to eat. We tried desperately to find a good looking menu on our side of the city, but pretty much no one spoke English in the little neighbourhood we were in....that, and by the time we were ready to eat a soccer football game was starting and we were just a couple streets from the stadium, so back over the bridge we went (with our exhausted legs) and decided pasta was in order. So, Nudlehaus it was...I can't find a website, but it is right behind Museum Ludwig, which is behind the Cathedral.

This place is just your run of the mill pasta place, much like an Olive Garden but doesn't pretend to be fancy. ha! We felt very welcome and it was full of tourists from all over the globe. I had a glass of wine and the lasagna. It was good and filled the belly. 

Final day...we were so tired this particular morning. We wanted something different for breakfast but wasn't quite sure what. We googled traditional German breakfasts but came up short. Seems like the Germans typically have just bread of some kind for breakfast, so we hiked it back to the Coffee Bean and Tea leaf for another tasty latte and split a muffin.

After that we made our way to the zoo and tried their cafe, it wasn't horribly overpriced and was pretty good. Of course we got curry wurst and chips again.

Post zoo and lots of walking we went back to the shopping district and grabbed some Dunkin' and took it to the Cathedral steps for a pic-nic. It was fantastic! 

After Dunkin' we walked the Rhine for a while enjoying the architecture and all the people. There was a guy out there blowing big bubbles and he had bubble stuff for rent, people were renting it, it was very cute. After that we went to Bruehaus Sion.

This place has been around for a very long time and was extremely busy. I am not sure if that is just because of Oktoberfest or if it is always that busy. We got the last available unreserved table at 5:30pm so keep that in mind if you go. They do take reservations so I would definitely reserve a table as you may not get lucky like we did.

The inside is beautifully decorated with these candelabras and stained glass.

The food is typical German fare. I wanted to get one dish with black pudding, but looked up black pudding and decided against it. I just couldn't eat straight up blood lol so I went with my husband's suggestion of the pork belly. I couldn't eat it all, but it was good...especially if you are a fat lover it would be good...I spent too much time trying to peel off the fat haha

In case you are wondering pork belly is basically what we call a ham hock...what we'd traditionally use to make a split pea soup, they've turned in to an entire meal.

Post dinner we wanted dessert. The kiddo was craving ice cream so we found a cute cafe with a fire place so we'd be warm as we ate our ice cream! ha!

These larger than normal martini glass desserts were extremely popular throughout Cologne, so naturally we each got one of these. It came with four truffels and three scoops of ice cream, I made it through two truffels and the chocolate scoop. It was extremely filling. I highly recommend getting one when you go to Cologne as they are quite a treat and as I said, very popular!

That is it for what I ate in Cologne, make sure you stop by Peas and Crayons and The Big Man's World for the rest of the party! :)

What I Ate Wednesday...21 Day fix edition

I ordered the 21 Day Fix Extreme when I was on holiday in Florida this past summer. I played around with it for about 2 weeks after arriving back home in Amsterdam, ya know, getting a feel for the containers, but finally go serious about it two weeks ago. I am glad I did! I feel great and it really has helped, but I will go into more detail on that in my wrap up post next week. 

Peas and Crayons

For today, here is what one day of eating has looked like for me, while completing the 21 Day Fix. Yesterday was a particularly rainy day and I had errands to run....

Morning Coffee! I don't do my coffee 21 day fix approved. I can't. I love it with honey and coconut oil. It is still healthy because I use just a tablespoon of honey, which is local raw honey, I use it medicinally for my allergies. Regardless of what people say, it works, my husband and I did a little test of it in the early spring and I have to have the honey, I feel it is better than popping allergy meds all the time. I add in a tablespoon of coconut oil as this keeps my digestive track in check, and a little bit of unsweetened almond milk. It is delicious and is all around good for me and makes me happy.

Green eggs...this is one green container full of eggs plus a half green container of tomatoes and onion. I take one egg and 4 egg whites (which makes 2 red) and I blend them together with the spinach, then I add in the tomato and onion. I add a bit of a great clean chili sauce for a little spice. 

I was still a bit hungry after the eggs so I had a peanut butter banana multigrain wrap. Just 1 tsp of peanut butter and enough banana sliced to fit in a purple container. This was just about one small banana.

Post workout I had a protein bowl. This never looks appetizing so I will just post a picture of my protein powder ha!.

I love this because for a protein powder it is fairly clean and gives me that post workout boost. I use one scoop in 3/4 cup of unsweetened almond milk. I whisk it with a fork to blend and it is thick and creamy, like a pudding almost. It is amazing. 

A few hours later this guy was staring me in the face...

I got it the other day at Zaanse Schans, which I will tell you more about later this week. It was delicious, cost me a yellow, but so worth it!

After that I had to run some errands, one of which included the grocery store and I've been obsessed with cottage cheese lately so I had one little container...

Mmmmm....

After that I was feeling tired and lazy thanks to the rain so I curled up on the couch with a small tea and Suits. I am so in love with this show...anyone else?!

No sugar, no cream, just tea. Yum, yum.

For dinner, because it was raining we went with a 21 day fix approved stew...

This is the beef and butternut stew, but I substitute with pumpkin since that is what I can find here. I added in a little Parmesan to make 1 green, 1 red, one blue. 

And...because I still needed a purple and a green I made this cute little protein mug cake...

It consists of some homemade pumpkin puree, a little spinach (I combined the puree and the spinach to make one green), the other half of the banana from earlier in the day, and an egg white and a 1/4 scoop of protein powder as a "flour". It was super yummy and creamy on the bottom.

So, what yummies have you been munching on?

Linking up with Jenn over at Peas and Crayons and Clean Eats Fast Feets.

A Perfect Day, filled with Perfect Eats

Last Friday we had a very busy day, well, I did at the very least. It was probably the only summer day we are going to have this year in Amsterdam so I made sure to enjoy it, too bad the kids had to be in school!

I somewhat kid...it was 33C out, now we are back in the 50s and climbing into the 60s..we are supposed to have one more day this week where it reaches the 30s but it is supposed to thunderstorm all day. I love living here but the weather is really hard to deal with, but everywhere has a down side, right?! So, I will just go on and tell y'all about the most awesomest summer day ever!

Today I'm linking up with Jenn over at Peas and Crayons for What I Ate Wednesday.

Our day started with a lovely sunrise bike ride and picnic...

If you are curious, in the Netherlands to achieve this perfect sunrise...you must be awake at 4:45 to pack your picnic and be out the door by 5:05 to cycle to where you want to watch the sunrise at 5:20..on this day, now it is almost rising at 5:15.

Was so worth the early wake up to have some early morning eats with this girl in the calm morning light.

Our spread...Pofferjtes (I warmed them and put them in foil to keep them warm), banana, peanut butter, whipped cream, nutella, and strawberries.

It was delicious and such a tasty treat!

A view from behind the dune area.

After getting everyone off to work and school I said screw the nap and decided it was a great idea to bike 16km one way with my good friend and her 2 year old to a medieval castle that was built in the 1200's...Muiderslot. 

You can tell I am tired.

Along this route there were free roaming sheep! They belonged to farm as they were tagged, but they just grazed along the bike path and down near the water. It was so amazing. The path is only open from March to October.

We arrived at the castle and it was a gorgeous day to let my friends son run around.

I drank this awesome Lemonade from there tavern...

With the lemonade in the pink cup I also had a bottle of water and a boterham sandwich...which you would think has ham...no matter how many times I see this here I don't think it will ever sink in that "boterham" is just the tradition Dutch sandwich: butter (yes, like real butter), cheese, and this one also had lettuce and honey mustard. They are very good, don't knock 'em 'til ya try 'em!

This is a shot I think of the Ijslameer on our ride home, we rode over a giant huge bridge. Was so fun!

After that I raced home to pack our beach bag and meet the teenager. On my bike ride to her school I snacked on a nectarine. It was so delicious!

We were trying to smile through the heafty clouds we saw rolling in when we pulled in to the Haarlem train station which is two stops from the beach. The doors opened and it was very chilly.

...because it had started raining when we stepped off the train it wasn't easy to find a place that had seating...but we found a quiet place with a nice menu about a half mile from the train station, thank goodness it was only drizzling.

After this photo it started pouring and was lightening! ha!

This was after the heavens opened and the storm started to move away. The chairs are facing away from the water as they were trying to clean up and bring everything in. Here you can rent beach chairs by the hour or day.

The kiddo and I both decided on fish and chips because of the cooler, rainy weather. It was amazing.

This was our excited, yup we deserve some appletaart!

Mmmm...appeltaart and slagroom!

After dinner we went for a walk on the beach. We were doing our best to not be incredibly sad we didn't get to surf.

The sunset made it worth going out there even though we didn't get to play in the water...

...but we did...we weren't leaving without putting our feet in the North Sea. It was chilly, but actually warmer than the air outside! ha!

By the time all was said and done I'd drank a total of 5 of these bottles and could have gone for more! This bottle is one of my top travel essentials and I never go anywhere without it since it is self filtering.

I hope you enjoyed my eats with a little recap of our one summer day. To learn more about going to the beach in the Netherlands check out these posts: A day at the beach part 1, part 2, part 3.

Has summer arrived where you live? How do you remember to stay hydrated?